


Tell Me Some Bad News

by doctor__idiot



Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Growing Old Together, M/M, Permanent Injury, Post-Series, Wincest Writing Challenge, married Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 13:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11922072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor__idiot/pseuds/doctor__idiot
Summary: “I never thought I’d find someone, y’know?”





	Tell Me Some Bad News

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Wincest Writing Challenge](http://wincestwritingchallenge.tumblr.com). The prompt was the song _Behind Blue Eyes_ by The Who. I don't really know if I met the prompt, I just sort of played the song over and over and wrote the first thing that came to mind.
> 
> The title is taken from the song.

“You know, I just thought of somethin’ funny.”

Sam puts down his coffee mug with a clank. “What’s that?”

He is reading the morning newspaper, like he always is these days when Dean enters the kitchen first thing. His glasses are half-way down his nose, never staying put when he tilts his eyes down to read the articles at the bottom.

“Just…” Dean makes a half-hearted gesture with his hand, unsure of where he’s going with this. Sam unglues his gaze from the print and looks up.

Dean scratches his nose, too much scrutiny for him all of a sudden. He pours himself his morning coffee. “I never thought I’d find someone, y’know?”

“Find someone for what?”

“Everything.” Dean shrugs. “Life.”

Sam’s got his head cocked to the side when Dean turns back around to face him. Dean leans back against the counter, tipping his mug to his mouth. The boiling-hot liquid scalds his lips but the smell alone is enough to make him feel more awake and aware.

Sam asks, “How’s that funny?”

Typical Sam question. Dean half-smirks. “That’s not what’s funny. Funny’s who it turned out to be.”

At that Sam suddenly looks down and for a second Dean thinks he’s put his foot in his mouth – again – but once he sits down at the table to join his brother he can see the slight flush that’s appeared in Sam’s cheeks.

His grin widens as Sam looks back up, just in time to roll his eyes at Dean.

“What’s’a matter, Sammy? You gone mute all of a sudden?”

That gets him another, more exaggerated eye-roll. It causes Sam’s glasses to slip again and he pushes them back up with his middle finger, fully aware of the simultaneous bonus of flipping Dean the bird.

“You’re an idiot,” he mutters around a bite of his bagel.

Dean holds up his left hand, wiggles his ring finger with the white-gold band around it. “Sure. But _you_ married this idiot.”

Sam chokes on a crumb before he recovers, takes a sip of his coffee. The pinkish hue around his nose deepens. “Guess I did,” he says, eyes flicking from his plate to Dean, over the rim of his glasses, and back down.

Dean gaze automatically falls to the identically simple band around Sam’s own finger that’s wrapped loosely around the curve of his mug as he’s skimming the paper’s section with the obituaries. A morbid habit and one that seems to be dying hard.

Technically, it makes sense to stay up to date with the hunting world, who’s killing whom and whatnot, but Dean found it easier to sever with it completely after his knee injury put him out of commission once and for all ten years ago.

Some days it feels like it’s been forever, every ache and pain making itself known and reminding him brutally that his time is slowly ticking away, just like everyone else’s – no more Superman delusions for you, Winchester. And some days, days like today where he’s sitting opposite his brother who’s still just as beautiful as he was ten, fifteen, _hell_ , twenty years ago, and they’ve both had a good night’s sleep and a glorious round of slow morning sex, it seems like it’s been no time at all.

“Something on your mind?” Sam asks him but he sounds somewhat distracted.

Dean makes a negating humming sound. “Thinkin’ about way back. When I got hurt.” Saying it comes easier now.

Sam looks up then, instantly more aware. “Your leg giving you trouble?”

Dean shakes his head, barely feeling a twinge. There was a time where the pain from his knee was mostly psychosomatic, paired with the despair over what he understood himself to be and the knowledge of what he would no longer be. A hunter.

 _I really thought we’d be in this until we die, y’know, for good,_ he said to Sam back then, more than a little bitter. He remembers the anger – the grief stage most prominent in his mind still. He raged and ruined but no wrath in the world was able to sway Sam in one direction – letting Dean hunt anyway – or the other – hunting alone or with a different partner – and eventually, he accepted.

Looking back now, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, even if anything more than a limping walk is and forever will be out of question. And looking at Sam, the graying hair at his temple, and their matching rings, it was accompanied by something that might just have been worth getting hurt for.

“No,” he says belatedly, instinctively reaching down to rub his kneecap, “I’s just thinkin’ that one of the best things came outta one of the worst. Guess ’s kinda how it goes, huh?”

Sam smiles lopsidedly. He folds the paper and shoves it aside, then rises from the table to put this empty plate and mug in the sink and rinse them.

Dean leans back in his chair, reveling in his own rare elated morning mood, as he waits for Sam to sit back down. He always does when Dean hasn’t finished with breakfast yet and it’s one of those endearing gestures that Dean barely had time to notice back when their lives were much more eventful. He’s gotten used to – and grown to like – uneventful.

He says, “I was an idiot for thinkin’ I could ever find someone else,” realizing immediately how that could be taken the wrong way, “I mean, it should’a been clear to me right from the beginning that there would never be anyone other than you.”

Sam is staring at him and Dean has to fight the urge to fidget. He isn’t sure why he’s saying all this now and at all but he can’t seem to stop the words once they’ve formed in his head.

“All–” He clears his throat. “I guess all I’m sayin’ is that I’m sorry it took me so long to buy a clue.”

Sam stays silent, neither making fun of him nor berating him on how it’s been ten years and it’s a moot point – both of which would be preferable to Dean because it’s safer ground. He steels himself for something sappy like a thank-you or, god forbid, one of those confessions of love that Sam is so fond of.

Finally, Sam says, “Are you gonna have breakfast or do you plan on sitting here all day?”

Dean exhales, hiding his relief behind his coffee mug, as he watches the corner of Sam’s mouth curl in amusement.


End file.
